Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice
This Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice recipe takes about 20 minutes to make, and can be served as the main event at dinner. It’s a healthy meal that’s low carb, and full of both protein and veggies. It will quickly become one of your new favorites for busy nights.
Of all the healthy food swaps that have caught fire in the past few years, cauliflower rice is one that I can fully get behind. It’s SO good.
Trust me, my disposition is to be quite suspicious of all these healthy swaps. Sometimes it seems like the internet wants to make everything out of cauliflower, including rice, pizza crust, and tortillas. Many of these are poor substitutions for the real thing.
But cauliflower rice is so delicious that my 2-year old devours it regularly. That’s the true test.
I think the key to enjoying substitutions like these is to accept it for what it is. For example, when I make spaghetti squash, I don’t pretend I’m eating pasta. I just think I’m eating a really uniquely textured squash and enjoy the heck out of it.
Cauliflower rice has a buttery and slightly sweet flavor to it, and a very pleasant texture. I really think you’ll love it if you try it as an alternative to regular fried rice.
There are many ways to prepare cauliflower rice, but this Cauliflower Fried Rice has got to be the ultimate (though this Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice is a close second).
It gets all the same treatment as a regular fried rice, with the classic veggies, soy sauce, and ground chicken. It truly strikes the balance between healthy and delicious.
To start, you’ll need to purchase or make your own cauliflower rice.
While you can buy riced cauliflower in bags at the grocery store, I prefer to make it myself. It’s simple, tastes better, and has a better texture than store-bought cauliflower rice. Trader Joe’s version in particular seems to include a lot of the tougher stem portion.
Here is a post I wrote on How to Make Cauliflower Rice.
The great thing about it is it’s really quick if you have a food processor. If you don’t have one, you can alternatively use the large holes of a box grater to break the cauliflower head down.
What is Cauliflower Rice?
It’s basically just pulsed up cauliflower, with a similar size as a grain of rice.
Place cauliflower florets into a food processor and pulse until it’s well-chopped. I actually like the texture a little bit smaller than rice, more of a cross between couscous and rice.
Step by Step Overview:
To get started, fully cook and brown a pound of ground chicken over medium-high heat in a large skillet or saute pan.
I recommend using the fattier ground chicken made from dark meat chicken thighs, instead of chicken breast, which is far too lean.
Then season with soy sauce.
While the soy sauce is king in terms of flavor, you may substitute coconut aminos if you are on a paleo diet.
Remove the cooked chicken to a bowl, then in the same pan, cook two beaten eggs, let it cook into a flat pancake, and chop it up into pieces:
Cooking the egg separately is a trick I learned from my mom, and I really prefer it over simply scrambling the eggs into the dish as a whole and spreading tiny bits of egg throughout the food. I find when I have bigger pieces, I get to enjoy the flavor of the egg more in every bite.
Just make sure you watch the heat and adjust as necessary. You may temporarily need to turn the stove down to medium heat if the egg is browning too much.
Back to our pan, add some olive oil or your preferred cooking fat, then add chopped carrots and onion. Season with soy sauce, and cook for about 5 minutes, until softened:
Add green peas, scallions (aka green onions), and fresh garlic:
Cook for a few minutes, until the scallions soften a little bit:
Now add all the cauliflower rice!
Stir it all around:
Season with soy sauce, then add the chicken back in, the egg, and a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil:
Now it’s ready to serve!
I find there’s enough going on here that it can stand alone as the dish for any meal, but you can also serve it with Asian Cucumber Noodle Salad or Asian Broccoli Salad to add more vegetables to the meal.
For more cauliflower recipes, a great option is Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes, or Crunchy Roasted Cauliflower.
Recipe Variations
Feel free to include other preferred vegetables, such as frozen green beans. Frozen veggies cut down on prep time and make this a really easy dinner.
However, I do not recommend swapping garlic powder or onion powder for the fresh garlic or sliced green onion. The flavor will be too inferior.
Want to make it spicy? Add sriracha sauce to taste at the very end!
Recipe FAQ and Tips
You need 3 to 4 cups of cauliflower rice for this recipe. I find that a head of fresh cauliflower that’s 2 to 2.5 pounds makes about 6 cups of rice.
Keep in an airtight container for 3-4 days. This is also great for dividing into smaller containers for meal prep. Just note that cauliflower rice tastes a bit more funky after a couple days in the fridge, faster than most vegetables.
Technically yes, but the flavor and texture won’t be as good as fresh cauliflower rice.
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Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp oil* divided
- 1 lb ground chicken (dark meat)
- 3 tbsp soy sauce divided
- 2 eggs beaten
- 1/2 cup chopped carrot
- 1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
- 1/2 cup frozen peas thawed
- 3 scallions sliced
- 2 cloves minced garlic (1 tbsp)
- 3 to 4 cups cauliflower rice
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
Instructions
- Heat a nonstick skillet or wok over medium high heat, and add 1 tbsp of oil.
- Add the ground chicken, break up the meat into small clumps with a spatula, and cook completely, until no pink remains, about 5 minutes.
- Add 1 tbsp of soy sauce, stir to distribute, then remove the chicken to a separate bowl.
- Add 1 tbsp of oil, then add the eggs. Let cook for about 2 minutes, then flip the egg over to finish cooking, about 1 more minute. Remove the egg to a cutting board, and chop into small pieces.
- Add the remaining tbsp of oil, then the carrot and yellow onion.
- Add 1 tbsp soy sauce to season it, then cook for 5 minutes, until slightly softened.
- Add the peas, scallions, and garlic, and cook for 2 minutes, until the scallion softens slightly.
- Add the cauliflower rice, and the remaining 1 tbsp soy sauce.
- Cook for 3-4 minutes, until the cauliflower is slightly softened, then add the chicken back to the pan, as well as the sesame oil.
- Stir everything around for 30 seconds, then add the chopped egg back to the pan. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
8 Comments on “Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice”
This dish was so easy and delicious!! I replaced the chicken with ground turkey and it came out perfect!
Very easy and delicious! I used boneless skinless chicken breasts instead of ground chicken. I also opted to make my own cauliflower “rice”. Will definitely make again…and again!
Delishious! I modified it a bit to be Keto (leaving out the peas and carrots), but adding fresh mushrooms and a touch of ginger and Sriracha Mayo. So good. Thanks for sharing!!
This was so much better than I was expecting. Thank you!
I just saw the bags of cauliflower rice at WF the other day and thought, finally!! This is one of my go to meals for sure and those bags make life easy 🙂
Yum, this sounds really delicious! I’ve started buying the not frozen but already rice cauliflower for this type of recipe, which makes it really easy! Just found that a few weeks ago in my store.
So good! Super easy and quick!